Dragon's Oath

“Are you?”

“No! I’m just me.”

“Then this spell will not affect anyone who wants just you.”

“All right, all right. I understand. Let’s get this over with. What do you want me to do?”

She answered with a question of her own. “You have taken three years of spells and rituals classes, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I have.”

“Good, well, I’ll mix the spellwork herbs in your hand. Hold it up like a cup.” She demonstrated with her own. “Like this. The herbs touching you will help lend strength to the spell. Do you think you could manage the completion of at least some of the parts of the actual spellwork if I lead you through it?”

He stifled his irritation. She didn’t sound patronizing. She sounded as if she hadn’t actually considered the possibility that he might enjoy class-might be good at anything besides swordplay.

Professor Anastasia was in for a surprise.

“If you have to ask, you must not have checked out my class work record from the previous spells and rituals professor,” he said blandly, hoping that his tone would make her believe she would have found one substandard grade after another.

The young professor sighed heavily. “No, I did not.”

“So all you really know about me is how infatuated some of the other fledglings are with me.”

Her eyes met his and, again, he saw an emotion he couldn’t identify in their cornflower depths. “I know that someday you will be a Warrior, but that does not mean you can cast a spell.”

“All I can do is to give you my word I will do my best tonight,” he said, wondering why it mattered at all to him what she thought.

Anastasia paused, as if she was choosing her response carefully. When she finally spoke it was just to say a simple, “Thank you, Bryan.” And she bowed her head slightly, respectfully, to him.

“Call me Dragon,” he said, trying not to show how much that one small sign of respect had affected him.

“Dragon,” she repeated. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting. It’s just that ‘Bryan’ seems to suit you.”

“You would know that ‘Dragon’ suits me were you on the other side of my sword,” he said. And then realizing how arrogant that must have sounded he added hastily, “Not that I would ever attack a priestess. I just meant that if you saw me during a swordfight you would understand my nickname. When I fight I become the dragon.”

“That probably won’t happen any time soon,” she said.

“You truly dislike me.”

“No! It has nothing to do with you. I dislike violence. I was raised-” Anastasia broke off, shaking her head. “That has nothing to do with the drawing spell, and we need to keep focused. Let’s begin. Take three deep, slow breaths with me and clear your mind, please.”

Dragon didn’t want to. He wanted to ask her about how she’d been raised-about what had happened to her that had made her dislike violence so much-but the three years of spells and rituals training had him automatically following her lead and breathing along with her.

“The circle is already cast; we won’t need to redo that,” she said, taking a thick braid of half-burned grass from the altar. Anastasia glanced at him. “Do you know what this is?”

“Sweetgrass,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Do you know what it’s used for in spellwork?”

He made himself hesitate, as if he had to think hard to remember the answer. “Clearing negative energy?” Bryan purposefully made the answer into a question.

“Yes. That’s correct. Very good.” Anastasia spoke to him like he was a first-year fledgling. He hid his smile from her while she held the braided grass over the green earth candle. It relit easily. Then, wafting it clockwise around them, she turned to him and said, “I begin with sweetgrass to cleanse this space…” She paused, giving him an expectant look.

“Any negative energy must leave this place.” With no hesitation, he said the rest of the opening spellwork line that completed the sweetgrass cleansing.

She beamed her pleasure in a sweet smile that made his breath catch in his throat, and Dragon was suddenly very, very glad he’d always been especially good at spells and rituals.

Anastasia placed the smoking braid back on the altar and then she took a pinch of herbs from the first velvet bag. She walked to him and he held his hand up for her, palm cupped, as she’d shown him. Anastasia sprinkled the bits of dried leaves, whose smell was familiar to him not just because he’d recently had the things blown in his face but also because he actually had spent the past three years paying attention in class. So when the priestess said, “Awareness and clarity come with these leaves of bay…,” paused, and glanced at him it was an automatic, easy response for him to complete the line with, “Through earth we call their power today.”

She rewarded him with another sweet smile before going to the second velvet bag. She returned to sprinkle dried needles over the bay leaves. “Cedar, from you it is courage, protection, and self-control I seek.”

“Lend us your strength so that this spell shall not be weak,” he recited quickly, not waiting for her pause.

This time Anastasia’s smile seemed thoughtful, which made Dragon feel self-satisfied. More than a little smug, he was sitting there, smiling, knowing that the last ingredient of the spell would be salt to bind it, when the priestess shocked him completely by reaching forward and resting her hand softly on his head. He felt a jolt at her touch and his gaze went to hers. Her eyes widened and her voice definitely sounded breathless as she said, “A part of this spell should come from you…”

She paused and this time all he could do was sit there, silent, with his pulse pounding as her hand slid down toward his cheek. “So that it is cast straight, strong, and true.” Her slim white fingers wrapped around several strands of hair that had escaped from the piece of leather that held the rest of it back, out of his way. Then she tugged. Hard. And plucked several strands from his head, which she dropped into his waiting palm.

Dragon resisted the urge to yelp and rub his scalp.

Only then did she turn to the third velvet pouch and come back with the crystals of salt, but she didn’t sprinkle them over the mixture in his hand. Instead she took his other hand and led him from where he was sitting on the altar rock. Slowly, as she still held his hand in hers, the two of them began to walk clockwise around the glowing candles. Anastasia’s voice changed as she got to the heart of the spell. Dragon couldn’t complete the lines for her because he’d never heard this particular casting, but as she spoke and they moved around the stone he could feel the power of the spell wash over them. He became caught in her words, drawn to them as if they had texture and touch.

“A drawing spell is what we work tonight.

Our wish is to cast clarity of sight.

With leaves of bay we will reveal the truth

Love should not be based on arrogant youth.

Cedar strength protects from the boy’s misdeeds,

Lends courage and control to fulfill their needs.”

Dragon was so caught up in the sound of her voice that it took him a moment to process what she was actually saying. By the time he understood she was probably calling him an arrogant miscreant, they’d come to a halt before the red fire candle and she turned to face him. Cradling his hand that cupped the herbs, she added the salt to the mixture, intoning, “Salt is the key to bind this spell to me.”

Then she guided their joined hands over the red candle and, as she scooped out the mixture and fed it to the flame, said, “In this flame the magick cuts like a sword drawing only the truth of Bryan Dragon Lankford!”

With a whoosh! the flame ate the mixture, blazing up so high that Dragon had to pull his hand back to avoid being scorched.

At the Tower Grove House of Night, fifteen young fledglings paused. It was near enough to dawn that seven of